Italian horror films are known to be in a class all their own but The Laplace’s Demon (Il Demone di Laplace) tries something different. Does it succeed in carving out its place or are we left wanting?

A group of people are summoned to a professors’ island, a professor they have never met. While there, they become trapped in an experiment. An experiment that mirrors their own as well as “The Laplace’s Demon” which is a reference to an 1800 century mathematician and being able to predict the future once a specific equation is found. What follows is an interesting film that kept me interested until the very end.

The idea of free will versus fate is on full display here without seeming pretentious and exhausting. While the high-level story was engaging and thought out, the same can’t be said for the characters. They were as wooden as the set pieces with about the same emotional range. Though this may sound harsh, it’s actually a testament to the overall story that I still became so invested in the outcome.

The first thing you’ll notice is the aesthetic of the film. It is very deliberate in the style in which it was shot. It is black and white with a definite feel of older movies like those of Vincent Price. How one views this design choice, will decide how much they get out of this. I can see some people hating it and some loving it. There is a very deliberate pace being used with the action being used sparingly. With that said, the action itself feels like something you would see on an episode of Doctor Who.

The set was designed in such a way that the time period that this was supposed to take place was hard to pin down. There were laptops and cell phones next to tube TVs and phonographs. I feel that this definitely added to the feel of the film. One absolute highlight to the movie is the use of a small mechanical house within the film to showcase what is happening with the characters throughout but represented as chess pieces. This was entertaining and well used.

The sound and music are what you’d expect from a late 50s film with slightly scratchy audio and some hard strings to add to the atmosphere. One thing that that did stand out though was the rough translation of the film. This is an Italian film with English subtitles. Sometimes the subtitles were so off that it would just create a confusing statement. There was obvious care put into this which makes the subtitle mistakes stand out even more.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by the time I got to the credits. Though it was on the slower side, I didn’t feel like it dragged on. Though the characters were grating, the overall plot kept me stuck to my seat. Though some design choices were confusing, I still found it visually interesting. All in all, it’s not perfect, but the pros outweigh the cons. I would recommend it to someone who would want a film to talk about afterward.